King Richard III is love interest in time-traveling romantic novel
In Rings of Passage, a romantic fantasy by Barberton native Karla Tipton, King Richard III is not the bitter hunchback of Shakespeare’s tragedy; he’s a handsome, maligned hero, and a time-traveling woman may be able to save him from his fate on Bosworth Field.
Anise Wynford has inherited the Massachusetts home of the father she never knew, but she has little time to live there before she is transported, dazed, into 15th century England amid the Wars of the Roses. A concerned Richard and his mother care for her, and Anise notices that Richard wears a ring that’s identical to her own — one she doesn’t remember acquiring.
Anise and Richard fall in love, but Annie has read the play; in fact, she has a copy in her tote bag, and it details just how the future Henry VII takes the crown. There are elaborate plots among the king’s household as well as wizards who want to use the power of the rings to overthrow Richard and discredit Anise.
Rings of Passage (434 pages, softcover) costs $15.50 from online retailers. Karla Tipton is a former writer and editor for the Antelope Valley (Calif. ) Press, and now works at Edwards Air Force Base.
‘Akron Aviation’
The history of Akron aviation is more than blimps. Akron Aviation, a pictorial history by James I. Pryor II, demonstrates the Rubber City’s place in the industry.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. made airplane tires and rubber-coated fabric for airplane wings in the first decade of the 20th century. There are, of course, many pictures of blimps, beginning with Navy craft in World War I, and shots of the 1927 National Balloon Race at the former Akron-Cleveland Speedway in Northampton Township.
Pryor covers Akron’s contributions to the defense effort in World War II, with Goodyear’s production of more than 4,000 FG-1D Corsair airplanes for the Navy. Also included is the striking 1927 art-deco terminal at Akron Municipal Airport.
Akron Aviation (127 pages, softcover) costs $21.99 from Arcadia Publishing. James I. Pryor II is retired from Goodyear.
‘The Good Lord Bird’
Oberlin College alumnus James McBride will read from and sign The Good Lord Bird at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Hudson Library & Historical Society, 96 Library St., followed by a performance by his jazz combo, with which he plays saxophone.
The 2013 National Book Award winner for fiction is the story of momentous events told with just enough lampoonery to qualify as a farce, while retaining the impact of history.
Henry Shackleford, a slave boy in the Kansas Territory, is liberated from his owner by John Brown just before the Pottawatomie Massacre of 1856. Henry is wearing a potato sack, common attire of young boys; Brown assumes him to be a girl, and Henry does not correct him. Brown names his new companion Little Onion, and they reunite with Brown’s Northern Army militia.
Onion acknowledges that he continues the charade because he doesn’t want to fight, but he also comes to respect Brown, who is kind to him, although he never changes his opinion of Brown as a lunatic. Onion follows Brown to Boston for a comic visit to Frederick Douglass, and to Virginia for the disastrous raid on Harpers Ferry.
Among the most winning virtues of The Good Lord Bird are McBride’s quirky observational language and use of deadpan humor. Onion’s descriptions of the frigid nights spent in Bleeding Kansas as Brown and his company starve through the winter of ’56 are brilliant, and his lovestruck evaluation of a prostitute includes “She walked like a warm room full of smoke.”
The Good Lord Bird (417 pages, hardcover) costs $27.95 from Penguin. McBride is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.
Events
Cuyahoga County Public Library (Beachwood branch, 25501 Shaker Blvd.) — Kenan Trebincevic, author of The Bosnia List: A Memoir of War, Exile, and Return, speaks from 2 to 3:30 p.m. today.
Barnes & Noble (4015 Medina Road, Bath Township) — Akron native and former Denver Broncos player Steve Fitzhugh signs his children’s book The Adventures of Lil’ Stevie Book 1, 3 p.m. today.
Cuyahoga County Public Library (Berea branch, 7 Berea Commons) — Carla Buckley, whose debut novel The Things That Keep Us Here was nominated for the Ohioana Book Award for fiction, signs her new book The Deepest Secret, 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library (Coventry branch, 1925 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights) —The Cedar/Coventry Author Series features a Killer Mystery Panel with Shelley Costa, author of The Everything Guide to Edgar Allan Poe and the Italian Restaurant mystery series, which launched with You Cannoli Die Once; Casey Daniels, who writes the Pepper Martin series and, as Kylie Logan, the new League of Literary Ladies books set on Put-in-Bay; Kenyon College Bookstore manager Jim Huang, author of Organizing Crime: The Mystery Company’s Guide to Series; Cleveland writer Richard Montanari, whose upcoming The Stolen Ones is the seventh in the Philadelphia-set Byrne-Balzano detective series; Sam Thomas, author of the Midwife Mysteries; and retired librarian JoAnn Vicarel, 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Blue Rock Café (5827 Darrow Road, Hudson) — Comedian and talk-show host Chelsea Handler promotes her new book Uganda Be Kidding Me, about her African travels, 2 p.m. Thursday. No tickets, but purchase of a book from the Learned Owl (call 330-653-2252) will guarantee entrance and a place in line. Table reservations for the café, which will open at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, can be made at 330-650-2222.
— Barbara McIntyre
Special to the Beacon Journal
Send information about books of local interest to Lynne Sherwin, Features Department, Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309 or lsherwin@thebeaconjournal.com. Event notices should be sent at least two weeks in advance.